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| quote: | Originally posted by TranceGiant
What's up with this General Zagorec story, Tito? Care to explain? |
Ugh..it's pretty complicated and really not much is known so far. I'll try to summarize it chronologically.
So, back in the early 90's during Croatian independence war, the newly created government needed a lot of money to buy weapons for defense. The business itself was illegal because of the UN embargo, so the money and weapons that were coming through mostly had a pretty shady history. For example, a big part of the money came in the form of donations from emigration, which was largely comprised of people who fled the country back in 1945 when the axis lost the war. Some of it was also in the form of jewels. Those jewels were rumored to be stolen from the Jews back when Adolf ruled the day, and then later stored by the local catholic church to be activated in the time of need.
Anyway, at that time Mr. Zagorec was just a guy driving a limo for his boss, General Cermak. Supposedly he showed himself to be pretty resourceful and managed to get a truck of ammo by himself, so he was rapidly promoted and became the head of a company called RH Alan. The purpose of the company was to buy and smuggle the weapons into the country, regardless of the embargo that was in place. Many allegations arose at that time, claiming that a lot of the money which came into that company was not used for purchasing weapons but was instead stored on various Switzerland and off-shore bank accounts. General Zagorec and most of the top state officials of the time were accused of being behind those accounts.
In the year 2000 when HDZ, Zagorec's party, lost the elections, he fled to Austria, probably fearing possible persecution. Not much was heard about him until 2004 when his son was kidnapped. Soon it turned out that the person behind the kidnapping was Novica Petrac, son of Hrvoje Petrac. It stayed relatively unclear whether it was Novica or Hrvoje who organized the kidnapping, but the purpose of it was to blackmail Zagorec into giving them a couple of million euros. Some say that it was Novica who did it just for the thrill of it and to get some money for his drug habbits. Others say it was something bigger going on between Petrac and Zagorec.
Hrvoje Petrac was actually a friend of Vladimir Zagorec, and one of the most important people associated with the weapon smuggling in the early 90's. He was also one of the richest businessmen here, as he gained ownership of a whole range of companies, usually in pretty suspicious ways. He was suspected of being behind several murders in the region, as well as having huge blackmailing and smuggling operations. During the trial, a notebook was discovered that showed he had connections with pretty much every important mobster and war criminal in this part of the world. It seems that he was the one of the few people who organized General Ante Gotovina's escape, and it was shown that he was closely associated with people who killed the Serbian prime minister Djindjic.
So anyway, to get back at Zagorec, Petrac accused him of stealing 5 million dollars worth of diamonds in the 90's, originally intended to pay for smuggling in a missile system from Russia. Zagorec, who came back for the trial, fled the country again and returned to Austria. President Mesic sent his envoy to meet with Zagorec and offer him a deal. He seemingly agreed to say everything he knows in exchange for freedom. But he secretly recorded the meeting and went to Austrian court claiming his life in Croatia is endangered because he knows too much and people at the top either want to get that from him or kill him.
Ultimately he failed in his demands and was returned to Croatia to stand trial for the diamonds. His attorney was Zvonimir Hodak, also a husband of Ljerka Mintas-Hodak, who was a minister in the government at the time of Zagorec's business ordeals. They had a daughter, Ivana Hodak, who was engaged with Ivor Vucelic until mid summer this year. As Zagorec fled the country, he tried to sell all his businesses, estimated at around 300 000 000 $, and Hodak was supposed to handle that job. On the other side, Vucelic knew some people who were willing to buy the businesses, and they got connected through Ivana Hodak. As the business was on the way, I. Hodak and Vucelic broke up their relationship and the transaction became questionable.
The reason for that was that I. Hodak dumped Vucelic for Ljubo Pavasovic-Viskovic, who is the current attorney of Hrvoje Petrac. Obviously, their relationship was a risk to both parties, as they were both deeply involved in the whole story and probably knew too much. Several days after Zagorec was returned to Zagreb, Ivana hodak was shot dead in the stairway of her house and the killer ran away. Later that day, the ministers of police, justice, and the chief of police were sacked and replaced with people who are not members of the ruling party and are generally considered to be among the best in the country at solving organized and war crime ordeals. Hodak today claimed that it was Petrac who was behind shooting his daughter, but it is so far really unclear whether that is really the case. Supposedly Hodak and Zagorec now agreed to talk and go all the way in saying everything they know, but that is yet to be seen.
Whatever the case, this became too big to stay at this level. The people involved here were at the top of the decision making chain in the 90's and when they start getting killed, you know that this is no longer child's play. I suspect there will be many arrests and inquiries of the former top level officials. Can't say I feel sorry for them, most deserve prison anyways...
So there, feels like a spy novel when I read it 
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1+1=10
Last edited by DrUg_Tit0 on Oct-08-2008 at 00:05
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Would definitely make a nice gangster flick, add some Karadciz and Milosevic as well as dubious Paritzan Belgrad owners and you've got an epic "Balcan Saga".
